HADD training plan

After a long review of what plan to follow i Have decided to spend from now until Xmas and follow the HADD plan with the hope that by Xmas I will have built up the base to allow me to start a 16 week plan to get me through a spring marathon.

I have entered some thoughts about why I am doing it at my blog http://calfstrainsrus.wordpress.com/ and I am keen to hear from anybody who can offer me advice.

My plan is at first to get up to 40-45 mpw nearly all at MHR-50 which for me will be 118bpm (118-122) with a couple of X/C races thrown in over the next 8 weeks. I wil be doing a test this week to give me a baseline of performance.

Just trying searching for it 40mins but it only allows one search apparently.

There is a thread on US runners world forum but it is quite old and it is more about the theories than the practicalities.

Today was my first day on the plan. I had calculated my easy HR as 125. MHR 168-25%. I had no idea what pace 125HR was turn out to be but it was not going to be that quick, which was not a bad thing.

Where I work there are a lot of hills and so it was going to be difficult to find a flat route. Today was an undulating 4.1 miler where 125 was not to hard to keep to (although my HR did seem to want to stay at 128 repeatedly) until I went uphill in which case it shot up to 130 and even a 135 on one hill.

The average for the run was 125 with a MHR of 136. The pace was quite steady and it probably means I can run with a couple of other runners at lunchtime who normally would be much slower.

Tomorrow will be 5-7 miles, maybe at the gym on a treadmill although I am not sure I can stand the boredom. Wednesday will probably be a 2400m * 5 test as per the plan but I will have to work out what HR bands to us.

My max is 168 so I think that I wil have some problems sustaining 2400m at 160 at the moment. It will have to be traget HR of 120, 130,140,150,160 for each of the 2400m efforts with 90 seconds rest.

I made big strides having read the Hadd stuff. It motivated me to run 7 days per week. I was a little sceptical at first, as the schedule I followed had no fast running in it. I guess this fact means that you can run for longer because of not needing "recovery runs". This obviously meant more miles eventually too. Generally the 65-70% runs initially are quite slow, infact runners starting the hadd stuff regularly referred to these as almost walking. But once these extend to 70mins duration on a regular basis, the pace for the HR increases, as the lactate threshold rises.

Also I remember (I started Hadd in 2005) being thoroughly enthused and motivated by the novelty that running for time and HR brought, rather than thinking about speed and distance.

The big improvement for me came when I added the 2 90min runs. 10mins warm-up, 70mins@80%, 10mins warm-down. These sessions, I believe, were key to me improving my marathon time.

The most amazing thing was, when it came to racing. I was nervous having done about 12 weeks of Hadd, and the realisation that I would be running at an intensity that I had't gone any where near in the last 3 months!!!!!

But needless to say, once the legs got going, the race went well. And having finished felt as if I could've done another 10k!!

I would thoroughly recommend the Hadd stuff, especially for beginners, and definitely for those wishing to step up to, or improve their marathon times.

All good stuff. I checked out the fetcheveryone thread - well about a third of it because it was so long. There seems to be 2 or 3 knowledgeable posters (Boab, Dr.Dan and Happy Panda from memory) but there was a lot of waffle the further I got into the thread.

Brian makes an interesting point, which must be something that anybody starting out on Hadd thinks about. How do I run fast after 12 weeks of slow running. It seems to have worked for him.

I did my first benchmark tonight and I don't really know what to make of it.

2400m at 110,120,130,140 and 150bpm. 90 seconds rest (it was more like 2 minutes though) . All done on the treadmill which will give me consistency of conditions over time.

Zone AHR Time Pace

110 108 15:31 10:21 - seemed very slow and it was

120 118 13:19 08:53 - more comfortable

130 131 12:14 08:09 - felt like a decent pace at last

140 140 11:04 07:23 - definitely working

150 137 10:04 06:48. - impossible to get my HR to150. I ran the last mile (or more) at 6:18 pace and yet did not get above 147. I could not have pushed much more without sprinting. On Sunday I ran a 5 miler in 7:30 pace with an average HR of 141 and a max of 153. Today a mile at 6:18 only gave me147 max. What gives.

I am not sure what the above tells me about my current fitness levels but I knew I had done a good work at at the end. 7.5 miles in the bag. Any thoughts appreciated

Well I've just spent a reasonably long time re-reading the original 25 page HADD training document and I think I'll be using it in some shape or form in my come-back to running fitness. Watch this space, but I'm a good few weeks off strapping on the Garmin and squeezing that toothpaste tube just yet.

JB - sorry, just read your post. I've never put HADD training into actual practise so others may have more to say about your stats based on experience, but I do understand a bit about HR. IMO it's no great surprise that you couldn't get up to target HR over the course of a mile if most of the previous running had been at a relatively easier pace. You're bound to be able to hit higher HR over a continuous, maximal 5 mile effort.

One thing I do understand about HADD training is the need for perserverance, patience and consistency. I can only suggest you stick with the easy paced training, repeat the test further down the line as prescribed and see how the stats compare.

Phil makes a good point about the time required to get the HR up to a decent level. Also the fact that you took longer recoveries would affect it, as the Hr would've dropped a few more beats in the extra 30s or so.

It's a start JB. Now to start your training. First things first - concentrate on building the lower intensity runs up to a minimum of 70mins duration. Then add in the 2 90min runs.

DR Dan, yes I agree on the weekly mileage. Infact may be better to just incorporate 1 90min run initially, whilst building the fitness. Then adding the 2nd later?

That may be the way to start ... ar perhaps to do two sessions but keep them shorter. I jumped in to the ILTHR sessions (12 miles, with 10.5 miles at sub-LT) once I was running 50 mpw but was probably not quite ready. May and June showed great improvement in average pace for HR (145 bpm is my 81-82% maxHR) and the drift came down. I over-did things in June however ... 250+ miles running (but also 136 miles on the bike and 6.5 mills of front crawl) and ended up with a hamstring niggle which meant July was reduced down to just 95 miles. However, I think you can see the progress (the two in brackets are on a different route, the rest are identical) ... drift came right down and I feel that had I continued in July, things might have improved further.

After niggly July, I had to concentrate on getting my mileage back up ... and especially my long runs as I have a mara in October. So the sub-LT sessions took 2nd place and became more infrequent to ensure my legs were able to get me around the long runs.

19/08/2011 7:14/m 14426/08/2011 7:07/m 144

09/09/2011 7:16/m 14521/09/2011 7:21/m 140(27/09/2011 7:36/m 140)

I'm hopeful that the mileage over August and September has left me more robust and that, if I recover from the mara, I'll be able to pick up the sub-LT sessiosn again.

Well I've just spent a reasonably long time re-reading the original 25 page HADD training document and I think I'll be using it in some shape or form in my come-back to running fitness. Watch this space, but I'm a good few weeks off strapping on the Garmin and squeezing that toothpaste tube just yet.

DrD, What I found with the 80% runs was when I did them regularly, the initial improvemnt wasquick but after about 4 to 5 weeks of one per week, the improvement decreased, and I hit a plateau pace.At this point, if I was training for a marathon, I would up these runs to 83/84% and this would normally equate to my eventual marathon pace.I haven't been doing the 80% runs hardly at all, similar reasons to you, I have been injured Feb to June, and then after gradually building back the mileage (I am doing Abingdon marathon in 2 weeks - eek!!!!), I was distracted by the need to get in the longer runs and found it difficult recovering enough to fit them in.

I am also entered into VLM 2012, so I will definitely incorporate the 80% runs into my build-up to the spring marathon.

Me too, Dr.D. It will definitely be an exercise in patience because part of me is itching to get back to training with my old club 'b' group, which has been flourishing in my absence, but I want to be in tip-top aerobic condition before I set foot on a track again. HADD might just give me the discipline I need to get there.

Looking at the racing calendar, I've already completely discounted any XC - I can't see all that up and down being much good for hip injury rehab anyway - so effectively I've got a good few months to make a sensible build-up to target Spring/Summer road racing.

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